


In the Garden

by emungere



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:51:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gills flared open and closed at the creature's neck, and opalescent webs stretched wide between long, tapered fingers and toes. His skin looked eerily smooth, and it gleamed in the faint moonlight, completely hairless below the neck. His eyes were wide, dark red, and flecked with gold, with only a small oval of pupil in the center. When he blinked, a white membrane slid across his eyes just before the lids closed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to louiselux for betaing and to indelicateink for letting me steal her idea. :)

**Spring**

When Cho Hakkai abandoned the search for his sister to return to his family home, he truly did not expect to find her body laid out on the kitchen counter, revolver on the floor, brains neatly caught by the ancient porcelain sink. In subsequent months, he had most of the kitchen replaced by workmen flown in from Paris and Milan.

The foreign hires caused talk in the village and some resentment, but most people were relieved to have him home, relieved not to have the house standing empty and staring down at them from the hill with unlit, faceted eyes. Relieved, though few said it aloud, to have Kanan and her brother now irrevocably parted.

He did hire locals to work in the estate's gardens. Years of neglect faded day by day under the crush of twenty men with pruning shears and handsaws, loppers and spades and delicate secateurs.

They were told to be out by four every day. After the first time Elias Feeny lingered to finish a job, out by four they were. The enormous white tiger was a story that traveled as if on wings, though Mr Feeny said the tiger wasn't the worst of it.

Afternoon visits to the Hall dwindled from a steady stream to the occasional out of town dribble after that.

*

Hakkai let Hakuryuu out of the house at quarter past four every day to roam the gardens. Sometimes Hakkai came with him, walked across evenly trimmed grass, thick and plush as velvet, beneath trees that arched and flowed together to make rooms and corridors, past lakes like silver mirrors.

He avoided the lakes, for the most part. They were too flat, too still, too perfectly reflective, and he had no desire to reflect, or to be reflected. Often he lay in the grass until the sun set and the stars crowded the sky.

Some night, some hour of damp, starry stillness, he woke to the sound of splashing, hoarse cries, and the sound of Hakuryuu talking with his mouth full.

The moon was waxing, but not half full. Shadows flowed thickly and pooled in corners. The air was spongy with coming rain, the ground springy and wet. Hakkai left his shoes under a lilac hedge and ran.

All he saw at first was a froth of water, silver, and blood. Hakuryuu was at the edge of the lake, and he had something caught between his jaws. He was shaking the thing, and it was thrashing and calling out in a voice not nearly human but certainly not animal.

"Drop it!" Hakkai called to him, skidded to him over slicked grass, and landed on his knees with his face pressed into soft white fur. "Please. Leave it. It's not a fish."

Hakuryuu made a sound of disappointment and displeasure, but he did grudgingly let the thing drop.

It wasn't blood, Hakkai saw. At least, it wasn't mostly blood. There were oozing punctures in the creature's shoulder, but most of the blood-red was hair. It stuck to his body, wet and clingy, all over his face and chest and thighs.

Gills flared open and closed at the creature's neck, and opalescent webs stretched wide between long, tapered fingers and toes. His skin looked eerily smooth, and it gleamed in the faint moonlight, completely hairless below the neck. His eyes were wide, dark red, and flecked with gold, with only a small oval of pupil in the center. When he blinked, a white membrane slid across his eyes just before the lids closed.

"Who are you?" Hakkai said. "What's your name?"

"Gojyo," the creature answered. His voice was rough and low.

"Do you live in my lake?"

"It's my lake."

"I own the house here, and all this land."

"It is my lake." Gojyo flexed his webbed fingers, and sharp claws unsheathed at their tips. "I will fight you for it."

"No need. I am happy for you to live here."

Hakkai thought he saw a flicker of surprise at that, though the strange eyes were hard to read. Gojyo worked his elbows into the mud of the lake shore and levered himself up until he was sitting.

He was entirely naked. It was difficult not to notice. His cock lay against his mud-smeared thigh, thick and long. Hakkai looked back to his face with some effort.

"You are lovely," he said. "May I swim with you in your lake?"

Gojyo looked more obviously startled this time and inched back toward the water.

"Wait," Hakkai said. "You're hurt. I can help."

"Don't need help." Gojyo ducked his head and licked at the puncture wounds with a tongue that seemed far too long for his mouth. The wounds closed to tight puckers of flesh, not healed, but well on their way.

Hakkai found it difficult not to stare.

And then, with a sinuous twist of his body and barely a ripple in the water, Gojyo was gone.

*

 **Summer**

"I'm going mad, aren't I?" Hakkai said to Hakuryuu. Both of them lay on their stomachs and watched the sunset flare red and pink and purple across the lake's glassy surface. "He was never here. I imagined it all."

Hakuryuu let out a half-growled rush of breath and butted his head against Hakkai's shoulder.

"Yes, all right. You saw him. But maybe you're mad, too."

Hakuryuu got up and stalked away through the shrubbery, tail crooked to indicate his disgust.

Hakkai sighed. He touched the surface of the water and sent little ripples skating off to the far side of the lake.

A hand broke the surface, seized his wrist, and dragged him into the water. He fought out of instinct, but it did him as much good as fighting Hakuryuu might've done. The grip was inescapable, the slow pull irresistible.

He went under head first and opened his eyes. Gojyo grinned at him, all sharp teeth and blood colored hair.

And then Gojyo released him and disappeared into the dark murk of the lower levels of the lake.

Hakkai struck out after him. His lungs were burning already. He hadn't got a full breath before he was yanked under. His eyes stung from the water and the particulates suspended in it. Bits of weed caught in his hair and between his fingers. Light faded as he went deeper.

It was deeper than he'd thought possible. He went down and down and still got no glimpse of the bottom and no glimpse of Gojyo. The last of his air left him in a rush of bubbles. Each stroke was harder. His limbs felt heavy, and he was dizzied by the slow waltz of the little bits of muck and weed around him.

He turned around and started pulling for the surface, but he could see no light above him. The sun had set, or else he was too deep, or was he swimming the wrong way? He might be. He couldn't see more than two feet in any direction.

He stopped. He drifted, swayed by little eddies in the water. It was colder down here than at the surface. The chill felt good. It almost soothed the fire in his lungs. He let his eyes close.

Soft, cool lips closed over his, and a rush of air poured into him. He pulled back in shock, coughed, got a mouthful of water, and then the world was rushing toward him as he shot upward in Gojyo's firm grasp. It looked like the other side of a mirror from the below, and Hakkai felt certain that when they hit it, it would break and shatter and he'd be trapped underwater forever.

He had a moment of regret when the water parted for them and he could breathe easily again.

"Idiot," Gojyo said.

"Mm," Hakkai agreed. He leaned back into Gojyo's embrace and let the water buoy him up. He trailed his fingers through the drifting tendrils of Gojyo's hair.

"You'll never catch me. I'm too fast. The lake's too deep."

"You've caught me."

"I don't want you."

But still they hung there together, suspended by the slow motion of Gojyo's webbed feet. Gojyo's hands spread over Hakkai's chest and stomach. With the webbing stretched wide, they covered half Hakkai's torso. His claws extended and barely pricked the surface of Hakkai's skin.

Gojyo hissed, a low sound in Hakkai's ear, and then pushed him away. "You can swim here sometimes," he said. "But not tonight. Go away now."

"Will I see you when I swim?"

"Go!"

Hakkai made for the shore and pulled himself up on the bank to dry.

Hakuryuu woke him at dawn, curled around him, making worried noises against his hair.

*

Hakkai stayed away from the gardens for a few days. He had more workmen in the house, making changes that gradually eroded his childhood. The rug he and Kanan had played on in front of the fire, gone. The squeaky board they'd had to avoid on the stairs, replaced.

He had the bathroom gutted entirely, all the tile stripped, all the fixtures carted off to the dump.

He watched it all go from the attic window. Hakuryuu nosed at his hand and head-butted his hip so hard he stumbled.

"I wish you'd known her," Hakkai said.

Hakuryuu made a rumbling noise that might've been agreement or disdain. It was always hard to tell with him.

That night Hakkai surveyed the pile that had not yet been taken away. The claw-footed tub stood apart from the stack of tile and rubbish. It was pale in the moonlight, and Hakkai could almost hear the ghostly slosh of water, the scent of the bright pink bubble bath their mother had used when they were children.

*

In the morning, the bathtub was gone. There were wheel ruts in the grass. When Hakkai went to check, he found mud spattered on the big wheelbarrow in the shed.

The wheel ruts led straight to the lake.

The contractor frowned through the morning's work. He'd wanted to sell the tub off. "Who would dump the damn thing in the water?" he growled, eyebrows drawn together

Hakkai had no answer for him, but he smiled to think of Gojyo lying in a perpetually full tub, down at the bottom of the lake.

That evening, he found a fish lying on his doorstep. It was gutted and descaled, wrapped carefully in the leaves of an elephant ear plant. He roasted it for dinner with herbs from the garden.

Halfway through eating, he saw a pale face and long fingers pressed to the glass of the dining room window. By the time he crossed the room, Gojyo was gone.

Hakkai slept poorly that night and woke with the covers tangled around his feet. His skin pricked to goosebumps in the cool morning air.

The floor was covered in damp footprints, already drying. He struggled free of the covers and skidded over to the window, just in time to see a flash of red and ripples on the water.

*

Hakkai swam in the lake that afternoon. He hung in the water, arms and legs moving slowly to keep himself afloat. He thought of Gojyo standing in his room at dawn, watching him sleep.

A hand grasped his ankle. Hakkai started badly and kicked out, but the grip held him. Another hand caught his other ankle. He felt himself held and supported in the water. He let his arms still. Gojyo stroked up his calves and thighs.

Hakkai felt his cock stir and start to thicken. A second later, the touch was gone.

Water swirled around him. He peered down into the murk, but he could see nothing. Another eddy, a wash of cooler water between his legs, and a hand cupped the back of his knee. The inside of his thigh. His hip, his ass. There was a fleeting touch on his lower stomach. A streamer of red hair snaked over his cock and made him gasp.

And then, nothing. The touches stopped, and he was alone again.

He waited until the sun was fully down and he could barely see the shore, but Gojyo didn't return. Hakkai pulled himself out of the lake and walked back to his room, leaving damp footprints behind him.

He pulled his suitcase out of the closet and started packing.

*

There were legal difficulties with the estate. Hakkai spoke to law firms in New York and in London, to tax attorneys, to a persistent police sergeant who remained unconvinced that Kanan's kidnappers had died in a meth lab explosion.

"You said yourself you have no evidence," Hakkai said.

Sergeant Genjo gave him a sour look and chugged his coffee down, still steaming. "You can't just walk away from this," he said.

"Why would I kill them? She'd already escaped by then."

"I never said I thought _you_ killed them."

Hakkai's whole body went still, down to his blood and his breath. He'd lost her trail in Berlin. She could easily have doubled back to Munich where they'd been holding her. He felt himself start to smile.

Sergeant Genjo rolled his eyes. "Most people aren't so _giddy_ to learn that their relatives are murderers," he said.

"You still have no evidence." But it was true. It had to be, and he felt lighter for knowing it.

His phone gave a little bleat, and he pulled it out. A text message, number unknown:

 _come back_

He frowned at it and put his phone back in his pocket.

The next day, in a meeting with his grandfather's lawyers, he got the same text.

 _come back_

The next day, sitting alone on a bench, he got it again. It was followed by a phone call from his contractor, who claimed one of Hakkai's gardeners must be stealing his crew's cell phones. They'd lost three in as many days, and the police were no help.

Hakkai pictured three dead cell phones lying on the bottom of the lake and smiled.

*

Two days later, he was home.

Hakkai went down to the lake that night, hazy with jet lag and high on anticipation and nerves. He slipped out of his clothes and into still water. He swam out to the middle and watched the last spark of the sun dip past the horizon.

A hand gripped his ankle and pulled him straight down - and down and down. His ears ached with pressure, and his eyes stung. His feet touched the bottom, but he couldn't stay there. As soon as Gojyo let him go he began to drift upward helplessly, and the surface called to him with the need for air.

Gojyo's mouth sealed over his, and he breathed deep. Gojyo pushed him down to lie in a bed of softly waving weeds and held him there. The next breath Gojyo gave him was accompanied by an inquisitive tongue licking into his mouth.

Hakkai's body lit up at the touch. Every nerve in him wanted more. Gojyo had his arms pinned to the soft silt, but Hakkai had his legs free, and he wrapped them around Gojyo's waist. The movement pressed Hakkai's cock between them, and he could feel Gojyo's slide between his spread cheeks.

Gojyo reared back and pushed him down hard, though he didn't try to disentangle himself. His eyes were wide, and the gills at his neck flared open and shut, open and shut. Hakkai thrust up against him, and the slits of Gojyo's pupils waxed to ovals.

Gojyo bent down and gave him a quick breath, and then his mouth was on Hakkai's chest, a strong slick tongue playing across his nipple. Hakkai wanted to gasp and couldn't. He watched a string of silver bubbles leave his parted lips and ascend toward the surface.

Claws pricked lightly at his skin in warning to stay still, and then Gojyo released his grip on one arm and teased Hakkai's other nipple with the tips of his fingers. Heat and slickness on one side and a sharp pinch on the other had Hakkai digging his heels into Gojyo's back, shaking with arousal and the need for air.

He yanked Gojyo's head up and panted into his mouth. Gojyo's hair felt as soft as the weeds he lay on. He tangled his fingers into it and closed his eyes. His tongue slid against Gojyo's and over the points of his teeth, sharper than any human's.

It seemed like hours before Gojyo pulled away again. Hakkai's breathing had slowed, and he took care this time to get one last deep breath before Gojyo snaked down his body. He stiffened a little at the thought of those sharp teeth around his cock, but Gojyo only gave it a passing lick and moved lower.

He pushed Hakkai's legs wide, parted his cheeks roughly, and thrust that long, slippery tongue deep inside him.

Hakkai's back arched hard. He thrashed at the feel of it, in him, invading him, slick and hot and moving, pressing and _licking_ at his prostate. His movement sent up a cloud of silt that blinded him, and there was no sound down here, no smell, nothing to hold onto but Gojyo's hair and the incendiary feeling of Gojyo's tongue fucking him hard.

He wanted it, more of it, ground down against Gojyo's face shamelessly. He wanted it more than air, and it was Gojyo who had to pull back and bring their mouths together before the darkness swallowed Hakkai completely.

The world went bright with that first rush of oxygen, even dim as it was so far beneath the world. Gojyo kept his mouth pressed to Hakkai's, and Gojyo's cock head nudged between Hakkai's legs.

Gojyo pressed Hakkai's knees open and back until he was spread wide and exposed, and Gojyo's cock was pushing into him, stretching him. Hakkai clasped Gojyo's shoulders hard and gasped breath after breath into his mouth.

Gojyo's cock was thick and long, and Hakkai felt every inch of it. The penetration started slowly, but when the head was buried inside him, Gojyo keened into Hakkai's mouth, and his fingers trembled and scrabbled at his thighs. He shoved Hakkai flat into the weeds again and fucked into him with short, sharp thrusts.

When he was all the way in, he stilled. Hakkai felt so full he was nearly shaking with it, jittery and on edge. He felt any movement might shatter him, but still he squeezed down around Gojyo's cock as tightly as he could.

Gojyo pulled back from his mouth and hissed, eyes closed, bubbles streaming from his lips. He grabbed Hakkai with vicious strength and started to fuck him. Each stroke was deep, hard, relentless.

Hakkai's heart pounded. His body moved without his control, hands reaching for something to brace against, legs seeking leverage that didn't exist. Gojyo controlled the position of his body, the angle he was fucked at, and every breath he took. All Hakkai could do was squirm and squeeze on his cock, caught and desperate.

He reached down to stroke himself and Gojyo denied him that as well, caught both his wrists in a hard grip and pinned them over his head. Gojyo loomed over him and shoved in so hard Hakkai would've cried out if he'd had any breath left.

Gojyo's lips hovered inches from his, and Hakkai strained up toward them. Gojyo shoved in again, pressed his mouth to Hakkai's, and pressed their bodies together. Hakkai arched and twisted violently to get more of Gojyo's smooth skin against his cock, and then he was coming, gasping into Gojyo's mouth and gasping again and again as Gojyo kept moving inside him.

It was almost too much to take with his own arousal satisfied. The cock inside him seemed impossibly thick, and the head blunt head rubbed and teased inside him with each thrust. Gojyo moved harder, harder, and finally pulled out with a sound of frustration that Hakkai could hear even through the water.

Gojyo flipped Hakkai over and shoved back into him with one slide. His thrusts now were savage, and he slammed Hakkai flat against the lake bottom. Clouds of silt rose around them. Hakkai's breath grew short, but he didn't want it to stop, didn't want Gojyo to stop moving, using him with such abandon, as if he'd forgotten everything else in the world but this.

Gojyo shoved in hard and deep and froze there. His claws raked down Hakkai's back, and Hakkai could feel the pulse of his cock inside him. His hips jerked with sharp little motions for a few seconds, and then he went boneless, wrapped around Hakkai.

Without Gojyo anchoring them, they began to drift, curled up around each other, mouth to mouth. Hakkai closed his eyes and breathed slowly. He felt he could sleep like this.

It seemed a long time before Gojyo stirred and struck out for the surface.

*

Hakkai went back to the lake every day. Sometimes Gojyo would find him and pull him under and fuck him down in the dark. Sometimes Hakkai wouldn't see him at all. Sometimes Gojyo surfaced, but kept out of reach.

Hakkai had found a raft in the boat house, just planks of wood stretched over foam floats, but it worked well enough. He lay on it in the late afternoon sun and watched Gojyo dive and snake through the water, effortless and beautiful, hair trailing behind him like a stain.

"How did you come here?" Hakkai asked him.

"Your uncle's father's father's had my mother brought here."

Hakkai frowned. "Abducted?"

"She went willingly. She loved him."

"And you... She had you...with him?"

"With a gardener, after he died. She hadn't meant to have children, not here. But she was lonely."

Hakkai reached over the edge of the raft and touched Gojyo's cheek. "And you've been here alone ever since?"

Gojyo gave him a grin full of teeth. "I've had a gardener now and then too. No danger of me reproducing."

They were silent a moment. Gojyo hauled himself up onto the raft and lay on his stomach. He trailed his fingers and toes in the water.

"I saw your sister," he said. "When she came back here, she walked in the garden for a while. Then she went back to the house and I heard the shot. I remembered her from when she was young. You and she used to play here."

"You saw us?"

Gojyo just nodded. Hakkai thought about everything he must've seen.

"We did more than play," he said, slowly.

"You used to fuck when you were older," Gojyo said. "Under that tree."

Hakkia nodded. It was an old willow with branches that swept to the ground. They had been, he'd thought, invisible from the outside.

Hakkai rolled off the raft into the water. He was a stronger swimmer than he had been a month ago, and he pushed himself to go deep, deeper. He still couldn't touch the bottom before he ran out of air, but maybe today.

Gojyo caught him up after only a few seconds, but instead of pulling him back, he bore him further down. Light faded. Hakkai's back hit the muddy sand of the lake bottom, and he breathed into Gojyo's mouth.

Gojyo held him there, silent and still, until Hakkai's fingertips started to wrinkle from the water.

*

 **Autumn**

The year waned. The air grew too chill for swimming, though Hakkai kept it up until Gojyo ordered him out at claw-point, blue and trembling, and he had to let Hakuryuu wrap around him and warm him until he came back to himself.

Leaves turned to golden honey and marmalade and fire, and the sky was the piercing blue of forget-me-nots. The air was cool and fresh. Hakkai hated it.

"What do you do in the winter?" he asked Gojyo. He sat under the willow, fully clothed but for socks and shoes. Gojyo floated at the shore line and had stretched his hands up to rest over Hakkai's bare feet.

"Sleep. It doesn't freeze at the bottom."

"You hibernate? All winter?"

"Of course."

Hakkai imagined it: Gojyo sleeping on his bed of weeds and sand and mud. Hakkai walking through a winter-dead garden alone for three months.

"Couldn't you... There's a greenhouse. It's warm in there, and there are ponds. A waterfall. I could get you whatever you want to eat."

"I sleep in the winter."

"But do you _have_ to? Will it make you ill if you don't?"

Gojyo frowned. "Never thought about it."

"You could come and see the greenhouse at least? If you wanted to."

Gojyo shrugged and pulled himself out of the water. He made a face as he always did. He didn't like the increased pull of gravity, the hard surfaces, the inability to move where he wished. Hakkai thought it must be like a bird suddenly deprived of wings.

"Let's go then," Gojyo said.

His gait was stiff, hampered by his long toes and the webbing between them. His skin shone in the dusk, and his hair was tangled with weeds. He looked utterly wild. Hakkai longed to touch him.

Hakkai's grandfather had put in the glass house. It reached to the second story and stretched out into the gardens like an extra wing. It contained a small forest of tropical trees and vines, a series of pools with little streams that connected one to the next. Great, thorned lily pads grew over the pools and blossomed nearly the whole year through.

Gojyo dipped his toes cautiously into the still water and then knelt at the edge to trail his fingers across the surface.

"It's warmer in here," he said.

"It's like this all the time. The temperature is controlled."

"It never freezes?"

"Never. The pools connect. It goes from here all the way to the big waterfall."

Gojyo slipped into the water with a sigh, dove under, and vanished.

Hakkai walked slowly to the waterfall and sat down to wait. The sun dropped lower outside, and the glass house lit up with orange and pink. He dipped his feet in the water and sat until it was fully dark and he could see the stars up above through the palm fronds.

He didn't see Gojyo again that night, or the next day, or the next. He visited the glass house and stayed for hours, but the only ripples on the water were caused by the fat carp that drifted in slow motion among the lily stems.

On the fourth day, he found a fish skeleton laid out on a rock near the waterfall. He smiled and went inside to order some more carp.

On the fifth day, Hakkai waded in and stood under the waterfall. It soaked him in seconds. He stepped off the rock shelf and let himself fall into the plunge pool below. A hand caught his ankle in a second and then the grip shifted to his waist and Gojyo was pulling him close, kissing him, breathing for him and stripping his clothes off all at once.

When he was naked, Gojyo took them back to the surface. Hakkai clothes drifted away or fluttered slowly downward.

"There are tunnels underwater," Gojyo said. "Do you want to see?"

Hakkai suspected he wouldn't be able to see unless the tunnels were artificially lit, but he nodded anyway.

Gojyo pulled him closer still. "Hold onto me. I wouldn't want to lose you down there."

Hakkai wrapped his arms around Gojyo's shoulders, and they took off. They were moving so fast that Hakkai had to shut his eyes against the pressure of the water. The journey was a dizzying blur to him, a flight through murk and bubbles and bits of weed that brushed his skin like soft fingers.

They came up in the pool farthest from the waterfall. Gojyo grinned his sharp grin at Hakkai and lifted him up to sit on a rock, hands on his spread thighs.

"So you like it?" Hakkai said.

"Yes."

"You'll stay here for the winter?"

"Yes."

Hakkai leaned down and rested his hands on Gojyo's hair. "I can still come and see you?"

"Yes. I think I'll still be sleepy though."

"I don't mind."

 

 **Winter**

Snow fell on the glass house. The heat from within melted it, and it slid off in chunks. The gardeners no longer came. Visitors were few and far between. Hakkai spent his days naked beside the pools, or in them.

Gojyo grew more languid as the weather turned colder. In the summer, Hakkai often hadn't seen him for days at a time. Now he was generally to be found where Hakkai had left him the day before, floating, hair spread out around him like fire in the water.

He let Hakkai touch him more than previously. Hakkai lay on the bank for hours and simply stroked his skin while Gojyo closed his eyes and let his head tip back underwater. He blew little bubbles of contentment.

Hakkai laid his cheek down on the grass and watched him. "Do you ever want to go back?" he said.

Gojyo raised one ear above the water and bubbled a questioning sound at him.

"Back to where your mother was from. I could arrange it."

Gojyo shook his head. His lips broke the surface, chin tipped up, eyes still closed under a glassy inch of water. "This is my home. I don't want to leave it."

"Are you very old?"

"For a human, yeah." Gojyo opened one eye. "I might die within your lifetime. I'm getting older."

"Don't die before me."

Gojyo laughed. "Do my best."

Hakkai slipped into the water and sat on the shallow bottom near the edge. He pulled Gojyo to float over him and stroked his thighs and his chest.

"Don't," Hakkai said. "Or take me with you when you go."

"Mmm," Gojyo hummed and arched into his touch like a cat.

Hakkai stroked over his nipples and down between his thighs. Gojyo's cock started to stiffen. Hakkai wrapped his hand around it, squeezed a little, pulled his fist lightly up the length of it. His other hand rounded over Gojyo's hip and down to dip between his cheeks.

"I'd like to fuck you like this," Hakkai murmured. "You'd let me, wouldn't you? You'd let me do anything right now."

Gojyo only hummed again in answer. His hips rocked up a fraction, barely enough to ripple the water he lay in. He gave Hakkai a lazy smile and wriggled his toes.

Hakkai gave his cock a little more attention, long, slow pulls that ended with a quick rub of his thumb around the head. Gradually, the little upward rocks of Gojyo's hips became more frequent. His fingers and toes stretched out and clenched together. He started to make soft little noises that Hakkai wanted to listen to forever.

The water trembled around him as Hakkai stroked his stomach and thighs. Gojyo spread his legs wider in invitation, and Hakkai pressed a finger between his cheeks and inside him. Gojyo's cock jerked against his stomach.

Hakkai took him in hand again, more firmly now, staring and eager not to miss a single twitch or gasp. He curled his finger upward, and Gojyo's toes curled as well. Hakkai kept up the motion of his hand and his finger, in time, until Gojyo was gasping and disturbing the water with tiny, squirming movements.

Hakkai had to draw his knees up and pin Gojyo between them and his body. When Gojyo finished, it was with an upward jerk of his hips that splashed and sprayed drops of water across Hakkai's flushed cheeks.

Gojyo lay in his arms afterward and nuzzled his chest, utterly pliant and boneless.

"Beautiful," Hakkai whispered, and touched his hair, his face, his lips.

"C'mon," Gojyo said. "Your turn."

"You're nearly asleep."

"You're hard. I want it. Do me on land. I wanna try it."

Hakkai couldn't bring himself to ask if he was sure. He stood with Gojyo in his arms and stepped out onto the bank. He laid Gojyo, face down, on to the soft grass, and then stood a moment just looking at him.

The dip and curve of his back was like sculpture, each muscle and vertebra articulated. His legs were spread enough for Hakkai to see his softened cock and balls between them. He was smiling at Hakkai over his shoulder, sweet and tempting, lashes dipped low over his eyes.

Hakkai knelt between his thighs in a daze and then came back to himself with a snap. "Lubricant," he said.

"Won't need it. Just do it slow."

Hakkai didn't quite believe him, but as he set the head of his cock against Gojyo's hole and started to press in, the muscle accepted him with little resistance. Gojyo was hot inside, tight and soft, and his body gripped Hakkai's cock so perfectly that Hakkai had to shut his eyes and breathe before he could even think about moving.

Gojyo gave him a lazy grin. "Go on," he said.

His body squeezed Hakkai tighter, and then Hakkai had to move. His rhythm was shaky from the first and only grew wilder. He pounded into Gojyo, and their eyes were locked the whole time, Hakkai watching Gojyo, Gojyo watching him.

Hakkai had to close his eyes at the last and bury his face in Gojyo's back as he came. Gojyo smelled of wet earth and lilies.

*

"How long can you be out of the water?" Hakkai asked, one day.

"Days," Gojyo said. "Maybe a week. Dunno. Maybe longer if I could spray myself down or something. Why?"

"I wondered...if you would like to sleep in my bed one night?"

"I'd get muck all over it. Humans don't like that."

"I wouldn't mind."

"You would. You're making that face."

"What face?"

"That face you get when you talk about your family. You would mind."

Hakkai wrinkled his nose. "Well. How would you feel about a bath first?"

Gojyo eyed him for a few seconds, ducked under the water, and surfaced among the lilies. "Okay. But no soap. I can absorb that shit through my skin. It's not cool."

"No soap," Hakkai promised.

In the end, Hakkai carried him most of the way. Gojyo's steps were stumbly and sleepy, and he'd started to trip over his over feet. Hakkai's bedroom wasn't very far, and Gojyo wasn't all that heavy. It was worth it for the long hum of pleasure Gojyo made when Hakkai lowered him into the warm bath.

The tub was circular, and seven feet across. It was tiled in sparkling blue and green glass and the way the light played on the tile reminded Hakkai of the sun on the surface of the lake. He'd had it done in June and July with some faint hope of having Gojyo as his guest here.

And now, here he was. Gojyo floated, spread-eagle, on the surface, with an almost drunken smile on his face. Hakkai cleaned him with his hands and a soft sponge.

"Your hair," he said, and then stopped, eyeing it. It was lovely, to be sure, but tangled and full of weeds, sticks, possibly even small fish.

Gojyo blinked slowly at him, evidently too relaxed even to answer.

"Could I wash it if the soap doesn't touch your skin?"

Gojyo nodded, and then yawned and rubbed his eyes. "Hurry up. I want to see your bed."

Hakkai nodded, but he didn't hurry. He pulled the mass of Gojyo's hair over the side of the tub and got out to wash it, staying away from the skin of Gojyo's scalp. He used the shampoo twice and the conditioner twice, and each time he was careful to rinse the suds into a bucket and pour it down the sink.

By the end, Gojyo's hair shone like wood embers, and a comb slid through it easily. Hakkai dried it and him from sopping to merely damp and carried him to bed.

"It's almost like water," Gojyo murmured, as Hakkai pulled the duvet up over both of them.

*

The next morning, he slept on. His hair was dry. Hakkai had never seen that before, and it was impossible not to comb it out again, to make it lie in smooth waves around him. Hakkai kissed him after that, but he didn't wake.

He didn't wake all that day. He barely stirred, even when Hakkai stroked him and called his name. Hakkai felt his heart sink. It was nearing the solstice, the shortest day of the year, and he knew he'd been lucky that Gojyo had stayed awake this long. It seemed unfair, even so, to lose him after the first night in Hakkai's bed.

Hakkai carried him back to the lily pond by the waterfall and let him slide gently into it. Gojyo sank under slowly as his hair dampened and soaked with water once again.

It was too much. Hakkai dove after him, kicked and scrambled his way down to the bottom. He kissed Gojyo once more, and Gojyo's lips curved briefly against his. Gojyo's fingers brushed his face, and then his hand was limp again, floating free.

Hakkai came back up with a cough and pulled himself out onto the bank. Gojyo might wake when the days grew longer, perhaps in January or February. And if he didn't, Hakkai could wait for spring.


End file.
